REGISTER NEW USERLOST PASSWORD? WELCOME, Logout

Here’s the dilemma

Paul's Posts — 04 September 2012

By

Here’s the dilemma

We are right in the middle of designing products for 2013 and among those products is a pet one of mine: an integrated.  I believe today’s Audiophile wants fewer boxes without sacrificing performance and I intend to provide that to them.  In that integrated I want basically everything I need to run a system – a Swiss army knife if you will – and I want it affordable so more people can enjoy it and I am not willing to sacrifice an ounce of performance in the bargain.

There’s no reason for me, the consumer, to purchase this integrated if as a whole it doesn’t perform as well or better than my collection of separates.  That’s quite a dilemma for a manufacturer as the expectation of any consumer is to pay less for a single package than they would for multiple boxes.

Fair enough, but how does the manufacturer create something as good or better without duplicating what’s in the separates?  Our design team can’t put everything you find in a PerfectWave DAC into one box that also contains a power amplifier, preamplifier and phono preamplifier – there’s simply not enough room.

But here’s where this gets fun for us manufacturers.  Much of what’s in the PWD has to do with supporting the outside requirements of interconnection to other equipment, user interface, separate chassis, power supply etc. – most of which is not necessary on the integrated.  The standalone PWD has to play nice with every other box you connect it to and be compared to every other standalone DAC – the integrated does not – and herein lies the secret to our puzzle.

Remember the car manufacturers from yesterday that make better sounding cars because they are designed to work together?  The same can (and should) apply here.  We can tailor the DAC to match the preamp/power amp connection, gain structure and connection scheme – because those elements are fixed and known in a one-box-solution.  When we voice the final product, we make tweaks to the whole, changing the individual systems to work together.  It is to this last piece of the puzzle where you will see major benefits.

Tuning a piece of equipment to the whole means we can tailor the amplifier inside to match the DAC or the phono stage.  After all, what’s needed is only for these disparate elements to work together as a whole – not try and fit into some unknown chain people are likely to use.

So in a sense it’s like picking separates that fit together.  As a designer I get to pick the power amp that best matches the DAC we’ll use inside, the preamp will be matched to the phono stage and so on – just like you do.  You connect up the best match for what you have, including cables, speakers, etc.

So now you can see how integrating a group of separates together can have huge benefits when used as a whole.  Tomorrow we finish the series on separates.

email Heres the dilemma Forward to a friend and help us engage more readers

Get new and fresh stories like this each morning by joining the folks reading Paul's Posts. Click here

Related Articles

Building a Music Room Leveraging sound Microphones like lenses Microphones

Share

About Author

Paul McGowan

Paul McGowan is the CEO and co-founder of PS Audio Inc. a Boulder Colorado design and manufacturing company of high-end audio products and services. McGowan has been designing and building high-end products for nearly 40 years. Hobbies include skiing, music, hiking, artisan bread baking, kick boxing and cooking. He lives in Boulder Colorado with his wife Terri and his 4 sons.

(8) Readers Comments

  1. Soundminded

    September 4, 2012 at 5:32 am

    So called value engineering usually means cutting costs by compromising performance. Any hack can take a meat axe to well designed products and cuts so much out of them they hardly function at all. After 100 years of manufacturing cars Ford took so much material out of the discs on my 1988 Lincoln Mark VII’s brakes the discs warped from overheating long before they wore down. Bad bad bad engineering. It’s what you don’t want to do.

    Instead you have to boil down the goals you want to achieve and define them in specific concrete terms. Look for every way to achieve the same goal and find the most efficient ones. Usually there’s more than one engineering route to achieve the same end. Remove all superfluous gingerbread that doesn’t contribute to performance. Look for ways to get fewer parts to do the same thing. Don’t underdesign but don’t overdesign either. Find out where cutting back design just begins to have a real impact and then back off to perform beyond that point.

    Look for more efficient methods of manufacturing. Outsource subassemblies but install strong quality control procedures and qualify all of your suppliers including audits at their plants. Have them bid to exact specifications and then test the hell out of what they send you. Hire the best manufacturing engineers you can find. They’ll more than pay for themselves. Test your prototypes to see which ones end users like most. If you haven’t already got an ISO 9000 manufacturing process, consider instituting one even if it isn’t certified. Then stick to it. Design around off the shelf parts, not special unique ones that require expensive customization.

    • coppy

      September 4, 2012 at 5:54 am

      Paul,

      Maybe this conflicts with your objective and you, of all folks, understand this issue… but if you had to have a second box… why not make it the power supply. While keeping the noisy rectification process separate, the new product could then include some of your fine clean power technology in the bargain. The power box could also output clean power to other pieces of kit we still want to use with the new system. Great articles, thanks.

  2. mitch352

    September 4, 2012 at 6:58 am

    Paul, I have really been enjoying your daily post. I have owned them all–receivers, integrated, and separates
    and they can all be good in the right set up. I appreciated the advantages of a “very good” integrated
    amp even though I still own both separate and integrated at this time. However, I am opened to a very good integrated—will you be building one in 2013? Thanks

    • September 5, 2012 at 6:00 am

      Thanks Mitch. Yes, the plan is mid 2013 to launch a new integrated. We’re working on it now. Kind of a fun project.

  3. Tom

    September 4, 2012 at 8:31 am

    Precisely this sort of integrating engineering has been going on at the Bose Corporation for decades. In fact, you can give them the credit for the autosound development that you’re correctly using as a paradigm.

  4. mart

    September 4, 2012 at 4:52 pm

    Haven’t Meridian been doing this for years with their DSP speakers and proprietary signal chain?

    • September 5, 2012 at 6:41 am

      Yes, Meridian has been headed in the direction for some time but there’s still a lot of kit involved to make this happen with their system – plus I have never been a fan of the Meridian “sound” which I find too analytical, harsh and bright. That’s just me.

  5. oliver T. Finch

    September 5, 2012 at 12:29 am

    Remember the era of the high end all-in-one receivers? The integrated is simply a reinvention of the wheel. It seems though it will never be a real threat to separates it certainly will appeal to people who are satisfied with less than the best sound or cannot afford the best sound for whatever reason.It certainly will act as a stepping stone to high-end sound for many and isn’t that what the audio hobby is all about? Good idea.Wish you the best. Regards.

Leave a Reply